Community group welcomed withdrawal, cited regulatory gap across Australia
Goodman Group withdrew its $1.2 billion “Project Mars” datacentre development application for Lane Cove in Sydney’s north on Monday, after months of community opposition and against a backdrop of new regulatory frameworks from both the New South Wales and federal governments.
The application was pulled from the NSW planning portal, with the developer posting on its site that the policy and regulatory environment for large-scale datacentres had “evolved significantly.”
“Having considered emerging federal and state policy, Goodman has concluded that it will not progress with the development application,” the company said.
The withdrawal comes amid rapid regulatory movement on datacentres in Australia. In August, the NSW government announced a new “fast-track” framework for datacentre applications that promised to assess applications within 75 days if the plans meet a set of principles. Those principles include applying “world-class” standards for noise and air pollution, imposing no net cost to consumers and communities, and funding additional water and energy supply.
That announcement followed federal government rules unveiled in July aimed at addressing growing community concerns with datacentre location choices and energy and water use requirements. Federal legislation is expected to be introduced to parliament early next year, according to reporting by Guardian Australia.
The Lane Cove proposal had become a focal point for criticism of datacentre growth in Australia. Local residents raised concerns about the proposed facility’s proximity to schools, event spaces, and green space, as well as the clustering of multiple datacentres already planned or operating in the area. Guardian Australia first reported the community concerns in May.
Sasha Titchkosky, a spokesperson for the community group Lane Cove Responsible planning, said she was “absolutely ecstatic” at the decision to withdraw the plans.
“I think we could have all saved everyone a lot of hassle and heartache if we actually had an appropriate regulatory regime and the government at state and federal had jumped on this when we started calling for better regulation,” Titchkosky said.
“There was a real regulatory gap and that’s causing issues all around the country with inappropriate datacentres being put forward that really don’t give communities any benefits,” she added. Titchkosky thanked Goodman Group for listening to community concern and withdrawing the proposal.
A spokesperson for Goodman Group declined to comment further on the withdrawal, but pointed to remarks made by the company’s general manager for development, Ben McGilp, at a Senate inquiry hearing on datacentres held the previous week.
McGilp told the inquiry that the company supports “clear, consistent and evidence-based regulation that provides confidence for communities, governments and industry.”
The peak industry body Data Centres Australia took a different tack in its submission to the inquiry, warning that the risk for Australia is not over-building datacentres but “under-building.”
“Turning the investment away does not reduce global data centre energy or water use, it simply redirects it to jurisdictions with weaker protections than Australia’s, while Australia forgoes the economic value and the sovereign capability,” the group said in its submission.